...thinking that the world was like an orange, that I could split it open with my thumbnail and find a whole different world, the grown-up world, the secrets beneath the skin.

Divorce isn't such a tragedy. A tragedy's staying in an unhappy marriage, teaching your children the wrong things about love. Nobody ever died of divorce.

I've learned that some broken things stay broken, and I've learned that you can get through bad times and keep looking for better ones, as long as you have people who love you.

Sometimes the worst thing that happens to you, the thing you think you can't survive...it's the thing that makes you better than you used to be.

You should be concerned about the state of your soul, not the state of your bank account.

He loved me. He loved me, but he doesn't love me anymore, and it's not the end of the world.

Everyone has sorrow. Everyone has obligations. Everyone keeps going. You lean on the people who love you. You do the best you can, and you keep going.

People will want you to behave a certain way, to make a certain choice because it reinforces the way they see the world...But you have to do what's right for you.

My feeling about my own work is, I could be writing 'The Aeneid' and they would still have to call it chick lit or mommy lit or menopausal old hag lit.

Head's all empty, I don't care,' he'd sing to me, quoting the Grateful Dead, and I'd force a smile, thinking that my head was never empty and that if it ever was, you could be darn sure I'd care.

Read everything. Read fiction and non-fiction, read hot best sellers and the classics you never got around to in college.

Value your wife by valuing what she says.

The harvest truly is plenteous but the labourers are few.

Why is it when we have a bad experience with a product, we assume it is us, but a bad experience with food, we blame the food?!

The idea that seeing life means going from place to place and doing a great variety of obvious things is an illusion natural to dull minds.

Writing novels reminds me of being an awkward 15-year-old typing on a Commodore 64 in his bedroom, trying to be the next Stephen King.

Don't hate me because I'm fabulous

He could't have survied a hundred foot drop. I'm sorry Annabeth.

It's important to have women in leadership positions, because our experiences are different from those of the men we serve with and that helps us identify problems we can fix.

At the end of the day, I don't know what makes any artist say what he says. Everyone has a reason for whatever it is they do.

My forefathers didn't come over on the Mayflower, but they met the boat.